Countdown on the Calendar.

Hi kids! So, its July, and she has nearly come to the end. I've noticed that lately, I'm tending to personify everything as Female. I'm not quite sure why suddenly, everything has a "gender". I was perfectly comfortable with the neutral "it", and no pronouns, but maybe my constant "feminizing" of all things gender-less, is some not-so-subtle psychological wish to bring the "feminine" back. As in, my beloved Mom. I guess we tend to anthropomorphize our dogs, our companion animals, and I know I do that: endowing our sweet German Shepherds with all kinds of human traits like kindness, generosity, empathy(I suspect the last quality named, is the only absolute in evidentiary terms). Perhaps I am "mom-izing" all things important to me. The calendar, for example. I am headed towards two dates that are so painful to anticipate, that I won't even LOOK at a calendar. Which of course, makes her (the calendar) even more urgently important to me. September 14th of last year, we lost kind, old "Appa K."--Mr. Ho Chang "Big Henry" (he was about 5'3")Kwon, to prostate and bladder cancer. Sort of. He actually perished as a result of pneumonia. And then, exactly four Sundays later, we lost my beloved Mom to (Never-Smoker)Stage 4 Non-Small-Cell-Lung-to-Brain Cancer. So we are inching towards autumn, and all that we lost. All that we still miss. The doors in my house are left slightly open these days, and these solid "girls"- with their white paint, squeaky-hinged, aching for visitors, are waiting for someone to push them back, enter their terrace-level rooms with remnants of Appa K.--his tweed suits, and on the third floor, bits of my Mom--her ankle-weights that were never used, except to steady the walker she so needed, for so many months. Until near the end, when even standing was something she could not do; even sitting up, impossible. And holding her head up? Eventually, that was a faraway dream. Holding one's head up, even as these doors to bedrooms, hold themselves open, revealing only a glimpse of what our loved ones left behind, and reminding us, like women with whispered secrets, that they can be fully opened, or closed, but left ajar, they conjure shadows for me. I'm imagining Mom in the next room, watching the daytime tv she was reduced to enjoying, a quiet request for melon, or ice cream, "Lisa, is there ice cream?" and I picture "Appa K." milling about, asking for a ride to the doctor, and then complaining that the doctors don't know anything. I hear him tell me a thousand times "Thank you; you are a good daughter. I am proud of you." And I carry the ice cream upstairs to Mom, and Hansoo carries his Dad to the doctors, and then I open the door more fully, just now, and no one is there, except Mom's pretty sweaters, fluffy and vanilla colored, they are pretty girls, curled up, as bereft as I am. If they could pray for a wearer, they would. Perhaps they feel as useless as I do. Peace, kids.

May 7th: It's Been Two Years Since...

It's May 7th, and all day long I kept thinking "Is it someone's birthday?", and, what is it I'm supposed to remember? And then, at approximately 9:30 tonight, I was aggravated at my husband, asking him to please sign Mother's Day cards for our sister-in-laws, and I was writing a note inside the first of several cards, and as I dated the card, I asked him "It's May 7th, right?" And when he said "Yes, it's the 7th..." I suddenly cried out, "Oh my God, this is the two-year anniversary of my Mom being diagnosed with cancer...it was on this date, two years ago, that she called me and said "Lisa, it's cancer. I have cancer." May 7th, 2013, at 7:15 in the morning. Why should I care about the date? Because it is a day that changed my mother's life, forever. And it changed the trajectory of my life, too. She survived an initial prognosis of a few months, and beat back cancer for over 12 months. When it bloomed again, with numerous brain tumors returning, she fought back with new rounds of radiation. And survived awhile longer, albeit with greatly reduced "quality of life". So perhaps I'm grateful for May 7th, 2013, because if the diagnosis had come later, we'd have less success, we'd have had far less time, together. But cancer took away our future together; it robbed my mother of her career as a medical records specialist, it removed her from the gym where she loved to work out, she could no longer run every morning--or any morning-- it damaged out her ability to offer counsel to her adoring (and adored!) granddaughter, her penchant for gardening at her younger daughter's home--the home she'd become a part of, for nearly 5 years (she moved to Lake Worth, Florida in August 2008),it ruined the laughter she could easily share with both her daughters, the easy way mom had of making everyone else feel like the most important person in the room.... and it ultimately destroyed her ability to walk and talk. Cancer morphed my beloved mother into a child, and me, her caregiver in the time she had with me (up here in Atlanta), into a mother, myself. I'd never truly thought deeply about this, other than to accept the inevitability of our roles shifting. The unavoidable pain, and loss. Hers. Then mine. Mother's Day is fast approaching, and this year will be an open wound. As I sit here typing this, I think of how often I've promised myself I will tell my mother's story (her many stories), someday. I think that time has come. I'll begin a new chapter in the book of my life, soon. I am creating a foundation, in her honor, and in her name. Stay tuned. And if you are fortunate enough to have your Mom here on earth with you, enjoy those moments, because they will one day, be gone, forever. And it's always far too soon. Peace, kids.